Post/Author/DateTime	Post
NOOC PHD 05-10-05, 02:19 AM	I have been holding onto my failed War-Torn submission, since it's unprofessional to publish what I sent until Wizards officially refused it. I was beginning to think that I had made a mistake in my submission and it had been roundfiled. Today I got my reply from Mark Sehestedt. Obviously everyone knows I didn't get the contract, but this is a "short-listed submission" so for what it's worth, it might give an insight to the quality of the submissions. If folks are interested I can post the text of the rejection letter as well. THE CARNIVAL OF DISARRAY Eberron Novel proposal – Synopsis ·During the Last War, Prentice Ash was a monk and paladin who left his temple to serve in the Cyran army. On the Day of Mourning, he was in Q’barra on a mission for his king to recover a lost holy sword. Although he was far from Cyre, he awoke on the day after the Mourning with hair the colour of ashes and eyes like pale blue glass. He has never spoken of his dreams of that night. Since the Mourning, Prentice has been a man virtually without purpose; his temple and his nation both destroyed. He retains the holy sword he was sent to recover as his one connection with his past. Since the Treaty of Thronehold, he has made a living in New Galifar and the jungles of Q’barra, selling his services as a Master Inquisitive. ·At the beginning of the novel, Prentice is given a royal commission from the Court of New Galifar, to assist a trio, newly arrived in Newthrone by airship from Aundair. The three are Xarianthe, a half-elven noble, Sagath, a hobgoblin bard, and Truesteel, a warforged artificer, Xarianthe’s squire. Sagath is Xarianthe’s instructor in war arts, teaching her the ancient ways of Dhakaani soldiery. The trio is seeking a scholar from Zilargo named Trothkaer, who is a friend of Xarianthe and was last heard of studying an ancient archaeological site near the refugee village of Wyrmwatch. Prentice is to escort the trio and help find Trothkaer. ·Xarianthe is a firm believer in the Thronehold peace, as Sagath has taught her to believe in military valor and honour. The ideals of New Galifar appeal to her and she even hopes for a reunification of the Five Kingdoms. Prentice’s cynicism about war clashes with the beliefs of Sagath and Xarianthe during their journey. ·In Wyrmwatch, the party is struck by the poverty of the refugees, as well as their fearfulness and broken spirit. They obtain directions to Trothkaer’s dig-site, but no one in the village has any word of the scholar or the other diggers. Many of the villagers warn against the danger of lizard-folk in the jungle. ·Travelling into the jungle, the party passes a small caravan of three covered wagons. The wagons appear to belong to a circus, with brightly painted panels and festooned with ribbons and bunting. However, each wagon is driven by a mysteriously cloaked figure. The only person to be seen is the Harlequin, a masked man dressed in a motley costume of many colours, riding on a purple unicorn with a blood red horn. The troupe ignores all attempts by the party to engage them in conversation. ·The party arrives at the site of the dig, only to find it completely deserted. There are no obvious signs of violence. Xarianthe fears that Trothkaer may have been kidnapped and killed by lizard-folk. Investigating the ruins of the dig, the party discovers a person, a kalashtar woman named Kintari, who was imprisoned in a walled up section of the ruin. They question Kintari, but she is tightlipped, revealing almost nothing about her identity or how she came to be imprisoned. ·Returning to Wyrmwatch, the party finds the village has a totally new air. Fear of the lizard-folk remains, but everyone seems to be experiencing a near-manic festiveness. Every person the party talks to speaks obsessively of the troupe from the road, the Carnival of Disarray, which is performing nightly. ·That night, the party attends the performance of the Carnival. Xarianthe realizes Trothkaer is now a member of the performing troupe, all of whom appear unusual in some way, sporting deformities or behaving strangely. Xarianthe tries to speak with Trothkaer, but before she can, Kintari attacks the Harlequin and the Carnival breaks up as the Harlequin disappears into the crowd and the performers attack Kintari. The villagers scatter to their homes and the party goes to ground; except for Truesteel, who is captured by the Carnival. ·During the night, wailing is heard across the village, as almost every villager has terrible nightmares caused by the Harlequin. Prentice persuades Kintari to reveal the truth. She tells the party the Harlequin is an Inspired agent of Dreaming Dark and the quori within him uses its powers to enslave whole populations. He oversaw the complete destruction of Trothkaer’s camp, enslaving and experimenting on the diggers. Kintari believes that he has come to test the races of Khorvaire, in preparation for a Riedran invasion. She is sworn to stop him. The party resolves to aid Kintari, to free the enslaved ‘performers’ and to stop the Harlequin. ·The next morning the party attacks the wagons of the Carnival. They have initial success, but the Harlequin uses his power to control the villagers and forces them to defend the Carnival. The party presses through to the Harlequin, but finds that Truesteel, who has been charmed, defends him. Prentice and Kintari manage to win past the warforged, to pursue the Harlequin into the jungle, leaving Xarianthe and Sagath to subdue Truesteel. ·In the jungle, the Harlequin is cut down by darts from Cold Sun lizard-folk. Prentice and Kintari find the Harlequin’s body and are confronted by Cold Sun warriors. There is a standoff, which is broken when the quori inside the Harlequin manifests from the dying body. Prentice and Kintari battle the quori and Prentice slays it with his holy avenger. ·With the quori slain, all the charmed slaves, including Trothkaer and Truesteel, are freed. Having to fight Truesteel causes Xarianthe and Sagath to realize that battle is not always glorious. Facing the quori forces Prentice to accept that there are causes still worth fighting for. The party returns to Newthrone to report the events to the King and Court. The Riedran ambassador denies any involvement on the part of his nation and deplores the incident. The King praises their efforts and rewards them with a Letter of Marque, asking them to form a company of adventurers to serve New Galifar.
NOOC PHD 05-10-05, 02:31 AM	The Carnival of Disarray - Submission Excerpt: The city of Newthrone sweltered under the heat of the dawning tropical sun. Even at the foot of the city’s fortified walls, where the night’s last shadows cowered against the coming day, there was no relief. Down on the docks the cries of seabirds seemed leaden, falling through the cloying air. The sailors and riverboat crews who were rushing to launch their vessels on the morning tide laboured as though the air was a heavy, wet cloak that suffocated all unmercifully. Q’barra’s wet season tormented the people of New Galifar, while tinkers and magewrights did brisk trade in arcane artifacts that cooled the air or staved off the insects. Expensive bathhouses chilled the water of their marble-tiled pools with rune-inscribed oars that channeled the power of Risia, the plane of eternal winter. The better homes and businesses used silver fans of cunning artifice to cool the air with the same power. While the poor suffered, leaving their sweaty beds to earn their keep in the brutal heat, those who could afford to, hid themselves away in cool refuges built from money and magic. At an hour after dawn, Prentice Ash made his weary way along the King’s Way, Newthrone’s central road. From the docks at the mouth of the Whitecliff River, the King’s Way bisected the city, running straight up the hill to the palace of King Sebastes ir’Kesslan, ruler of New Galifar. Through the heat, Prentice could see the palace’s white plaster walls and its dome roof, gleaming in iridescent swirls of blue and green. The intricate mosaics on the dome’s surface were made of opalescent shells, harvested over a generation from the oyster fields of Adder Bay. The palace looked down upon the city, standing proud above the miry streets. Where the palace met the city, two servants knelt on the marble steps, scrubbing away the mud of the returning night patrols of the city watch. With his head down, watching for puddles, Prentice was intent on finding refuge from the heat. His long, ash-grey hair was tied back in a single plait, which kept it from his neck. Nonetheless small trickles of sweat gathered in his collar and ran down his back inside his short-sleeved war-coat. Gathered at the waist by his midnight blue sash, the heavy, charcoal-coloured garment fell to below his knees. The motion of it as he walked stirred the air, but the breeze it made gave no relief. Beneath his coat he wore loose trousers of heavy cotton tucked into unkempt but serviceable leather boots. As he walked, he kept his left hand on the sheathed sword at his waist, to keep it from swinging. Prentice’s feet splashed the edge of a puddle as he crossed the opening of an alleyway and drew near to his destination, Mrs Mennox’s coffee house. Although his mind was focused on the inviting coolness of the basement eatery, he noted in passing that he did not recognize the lamplighter standing up the ladder on the alley’s corner, polishing the brass covers to the corner’s everbright lantern. Tending the lamps was a relatively important occupation, exclusively carried out by magewrights of the King’s own court. Although not a prestigious job, it was nonetheless well-paid and steady work. The position was frequently passed down in a family. Prentice didn’t know the name of the man who usually tended the lamps on this part of the King’s Way, but he would recognize him in a crowd. The presence of the different lamplighter was percolating through Prentice’s thoughts as he passed by a shadowy doorway where a man and a woman clutched each other in an embrace. The man was a sailor, by his clothing, and it looked as though he might be leaving his trollop to ship out, with a kit bag on the doorstep by his feet. It was unusual that a sailor would have lodgings in this part of town, so far from the docks. He was late as well, if he was shipping out on the dawn tide. Prentice had almost passed the couple completely before he noticed that the door behind them was closed and locked tight. In their passion, they bounced against it several times, but it did not swing inward. Prentice was only a dozen paces from the door of Mrs Mennox’s shop, tending to the left side of the road when another pedestrian, a man, approached him from the opposite direction. There was nothing extraordinary about the approaching man, nothing to mark him out as aught but another citizen of New Galifar, going about his business at the start of another day. He moved one step into the street, to let Prentice pass him on the right. The two men passed beside each other, Prentice with his eyes on the muddy road ahead, the stranger apparently looking down towards the Whitecliff river. The other man lashed out with a swift and deadly knife stroke, aimed straight at Prentice’s kidney’s. For all of its accuracy, the assassin’s thrust found only air. With a small side-step, Prentice blocked the man’s arm at the wrist, then twisting, adroitly locked the attacking limb back against itself, forcing the knife to point at its owner’s throat. The man recoiled from the point, but as he did so, Prentice took advantage of his shifting balance and with a neat tripping kick, drove the man down onto his knees, all the while retaining control of the knife hand. The would be assassin found himself kneeling in the mud, his own knife locked at his throat, while the other members of his team, the fake lamplighter and the false lovers, rushed belatedly to his aid. “You were very good,” Prentice hissed in the assassin’s ear as he held him in a controlled grip. “But you should have gotten better partners. They gave you away!” The three ambushers stood back a few paces, their eyes ranging back and forth between their leader and the prey, wondering what to do next. The ‘sailor’ and the ‘lamplighter’ both had long bladed poniards in hand and the trollop hefted an iron headed mace. They were armed for an ambush, not an open conflict and though Prentice had yet to draw his sword, he was clearly a dangerous foe in a street-fight. “Today’s hunt has gone awry,” Prentice declared, addressing the three uncertain ambushers. “Call it a lesson in the craft and go your way. Live to see another day!” “To the fiends wif that!” declared the chief assassin, still on his knees. “Rush ‘im you gutless dogs! You can take ‘im; think o’ the money!” The man’s words were strangled off by an agonized gasp as Prentice tightened his grip and broke one of the knuckles on the assassin’s knife hand. The man hissed angry gasps for breath, but said no more. The others watched, obviously nervous, but still faintly hopeful of success. At that very moment a House Lyrander airship sailed low overhead. It was barely the height of a tall mast from the ground, one moment invisible and unheard behind the close-crowded houses, the next roaring into view, its shadow covering much of the street in a sudden morning twilight. The soarwood hull was easily forty yards long and the crackling elemental ring rumbled like distant thunder. It flew over the city like a graceful bird in flight, before disappearing from view again, turning in a wide arc towards the grounds of the palace. Lyrander sky vessels were rare in New Galifar and the sudden appearance of one in the middle of the tense standoff broke the nerve of the uncertain three. They bolted down the street, towards the docks, their abandoned boss spitting quiet curses after them. Prentice’s icy blue eyes watched them flee, then looked down at his last problem. “Now, what about you?” he asked his prisoner. “What about me?” replied the assassin. “Why did you attack me?” “Why not?” Prentice spun the man about suddenly and planted a hefty kick into the man’s chest that flung him backwards into the mud. Before he could rise, Prentice leapt forward, landing on top of the man, with one knee pressed into his throat. The assassin clawed futilely at the mud as he struggled to get breath into his lungs. “Why...did...you...attack...me?” repeated Prentice, leaving long pauses between his words, prolonging the man’s suffocation. Then he eased the pressure on the assassin’s throat enough for the man to answer. “For the money, why d’ya think?” he gasped. “What money?” “The bounty,” the assassin said, the pain in his throat making his voice hoarse. “Tha...Tharashk...Khalar d’Tharashk and...and the Finders is offerin’ three...three thousand for your head! Didn’t you know?” Prentice didn’t know, though he wasn’t too surprised to hear. Prentice had recently been instrumental in putting a stop to a smuggling ring suspected to have ties to the House of Finding. He shook his head wearily. “So this is just business, right?” he asked the man underneath him. The assassin tried to nod, but Prentice’s knee kept him from moving his head freely. “Fine, well is it business you’re willing to die for? What do you say, do you want to live?” The man was clearly puzzled by Prentice’s question. “Why would you show me mercy?” he asked. “Mercy is like water in the desert,” Prentice explained. “Everyone needs it!” The assassin sneered. “You let me up, an’ I’m goin’ for you, make no mistake!” he said. Prentice was astonished at the man’s willingness to invite his own death. The assassin managed to shrug his shoulders awkwardly in the mud. “Three thousand is three thousand!” he declared sullenly. Prentice sighed and leaned his knee down against the prone man’s windpipe. The assassin struggled for many moments, desperation lending him the strength to raise an arm to claw at Prentice’s face, but Prentice merely batted it away. Soon the constricted airflow took its toll, and the man passed out. Once he was completely still, Prentice removed his knee and then leant down to check the man’s breathing. Though his breaths were ragged, the unconscious man still lived. Prentice laid the palm of his hand on the man’s throat and, whispering prayers he learned so long ago it seemed like another age, he healed much of his attacker’s wound. Still unconscious in the mud, the man nonetheless breathed easier and Prentice was confident that he would survive. “Some people are too stupid to live,” Prentice whispered, shaking his head and standing up. “But I won’t have your blood on my hands!” He turned away and walked the last few yards up the street to the door of Mrs Mennox’s. Leaning on the heavy, bronzewood portal, he stepped in to the stone landing at the top of the short flight of stairs down into the basement shop. Inside, out of the morning sun, Prentice was embraced by the enticing coolness of chilled air that was circulated by two silver fans that waved back and forth from the ceiling beams. Each was shaped like the vast wing of an eagle and they folded and swept back and forth with the graceful motion of a bird in gentle flight. Prentice drew in the cool air and shed the oppressiveness of the outside heat like a man shedding a cloak. Then he bent down to try and brush the mud from his boots. “Don’t be leavin’ that muck on my doorstep!” cried a hearty, female voice from across the shop. Still bent over, Prentice stopped brushing and looked over the tables, trying to find the owner of the voice. The coffee house was empty save for a single patron, a young man in a cotton tunic, sitting at the main counter and eating a pie, his back to the door. There were dirty plates and cups on several of the wooden tables. The breakfast customers were almost all workers, who ate before dawn and then left for work. The coffee house’s day customers would arrive soon. At last Prentice located the voice’s owner as she emerged from behind a white-washed hardwood pillar. Mrs Mennox, a stout, aging dwarf with long auburn hair in a dozen beaded plaits. Wisps of grey shot through her locks and there were crow’s feet around her eyes. Her limbs were strong though and she carried herself with impressive energy. Mennox was an institution in Newthrone, having served coffee and pies in her shop since she arrived in the city nearly twenty years previously. None knew her first name; she was Mrs Mennox to all, and always had been. No one had ever met Mr Mennox. She wore a black apron over a tan-coloured blouse and canvas skirts and she bundled between the tables to the foot of the stairs. There she planted both feet and glared up at Prentice with nut-brown eyes. “What do you mean by this, comin’ in ‘ere all filthy with mud?” she demanded. “Don’t brush another bit onto my floors!” Prentice straightened up and held up his hands apologetically. “It’s done now,” he said. “Perhaps one of your staff could clean it up?” He nodded in the direction of the kitchens, where one of the coffee house’s two gnome serving maids emerged with a wooden tray almost as long as she was tall. The maid put the tray on the edge of one table and cleared the dirty dishes onto it in a series of swift, unerring motions. Then the tiny girl leant forward under the tray and slipped it onto her head. Balancing the load of crockery with one hand, the girl seemed to almost dance back to the kitchen, the dirty dishes not even so much as clinking. “I don’t pay them good money to mop up after the likes of you!” declared Mrs Mennox. “I can go, if you’d prefer,” offered Prentice, half turning to the door. "You will not!” Mrs Mennox ordered. “Now that you’re ‘ere you’ll pay your way! Now get down these stairs and order something. Mind you leave the mud up there!” With that she turned on her heel and headed back behind the counter, where a series of brass pots were bubbling with percolating coffee over a small hearth. She snatched a cloth from where it was tucked behind her apron and began to mop the counter top. When the serving girl came back from the kitchen, Mrs Mennox pushed a small stack of dirty cups at her. “So what’ll you have?” Mrs Mennox asked as Prentice made his way to one of the cleaned tables. “A cup of your finest brew and a pie,” Prentice ordered. He pulled his sheathed sword from his sash and leant it up against the table as he sat down. “Preferably one without any dog meat in it,” he added with a sardonic smile. “Dog meat?” snorted Mrs Mennox in disgust. “As if I’d waste good dog meat on the likes of you!” “No cat, either!” “Cat?” Mrs Mennox seemed almost incredulous. “We haven’t had cat for weeks!” “Rat then,” finished Prentice, smiling. “But make sure you cut the tails off first!” “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mrs Mennox said, turning to the coffee cups to hide an involuntary smile. “Tail’s the best part of a rat!” The young man eating his pie on a stool at the counter listened quietly to the interchange between Prentice and Mrs Mennox and he now stared uncertainly at the half-eaten pie in front of him. He hesitantly pulled back a remaining piece of crust as if he half expected to find a pair of beady rat’s eyes or a tail, waiting there in his meal. Swallowing heavily, he began to push the unfinished meal away. Mrs Mennox saw him do it however and gave him a withering stare that froze him in place. “Oh it’s bally pork, you daft beggar!” she said contemptuously. The man took back his pie quickly, fearful of offending her, but he couldn’t bring himself to finish it. Mrs Mennox took a small pewter cup to Prentice’s table, a dark splash of black coffee steaming in the bottom. “You’re goin’ ta ruin my custom with your foolish talk,” she said as she put the cup down in front of him. Prentice smiled at her and she returned his smile warmly. “That’s from the Whitecliff plantation beans, harvested last year. Was a good crop that!” Prentice raised the cup to his lips and sipped at the near boiling liquid. The finely brewed flavour spread over his tongue like a pleasant wave and he almost sighed. “Thank you,” he said, nodding to his hostess. The dwarven woman leaned in momentarily. “There’s word about that someone’s put a price on you,” she whispered. “Caution be the order of the day.” “House Tharashk,” Prentice said knowingly. “Someone just mentioned it to me.” Mrs Mennox threw her hands in the air in mock frustration. “Why do I bother?” she said to herself as she went into the kitchens. “Why do I even bother?” After she was gone, the young man at the counter stood up quickly. He fished into his pouch at his belt, fiddling nervously with the coins to pay for his meal. Looking up momentarily, his eyes met Prentice’s and then looked back in uncertainty at the half-eaten pie on the counter. His face went grey and he looked about to say something when Mrs Mennox walked back into the serving room carrying a pie. She glared at him and he nearly jumped. He pulled a coin out of his pouch and slammed it on the counter top without looking at, pulling his hand back as though the coin were burning hot to the touch. Then he rushed out of the coffee house, his features a pallid mixture of fear and illness. Prentice wondered if he were going throw up. Mrs Mennox laid a fresh pie on the table in front of Prentice along with a folded copy of the Korranberg Chronicle. Prentice unfolded the broadsheet and read the date on the front page. “Dravago?” he read out loud. “A month ago?” “That’s my most recent,” said Mrs Mennox with an apologetic shrug. Though the Chronicle was the most widely published broadsheet on the continent, Q’barra and New Galifar were not important enough to be on its regular distribution route. Most people in Newthrone sufficed themselves with local news, from a paper that grandly titled itself The News of New Galifar, but Mrs Mennox always did her best to get copies of the international broadsheets when she could. Several sailors on different merchant vessels knew they could always be assured a hearty meal at Mrs Mennox’s, as long as they paid with recent copies of the Breland Ledger, the Sharn Inquisitive or the Chronicle. Mrs Mennox collected the young man’s coin from the counter and held it up for Prentice to see. “Gold!” she said with a roll of her eyes. It was more than enough for ten pies. She put the coin into the pocket of her apron. If the boy got the courage up to come back, she’d return it to him. Prentice laid out the broadsheet on the table top and alternately sipped at his coffee and ate bites of his pie while he read month-old news from across the continent. The stories were either sensationalist speculations about the wealthy and powerful, or tales of monsters slain and ancient treasures recovered. Prentice wondered idly which sort of story contained the greater portion of fictions and lies. His pie was two thirds eaten and he was carefully following a convoluted story about influence peddling within the Thranian Church, when the door of Mrs Mennox’s shop swung wide and three individuals stepped in. From his seat against the far wall, Prentice could see both the main entry and the kitchen door clearly and he watched the three newcomers casually, while dabbing crumbs of piecrust with a finger. The new arrivals were an odd mix of individuals. There was a dark-haired human man, a blonde-headed half-elf and a hobgoblin who stood behind the other two and close to a foot taller than both. The hobgoblin wore an ornate leather jerkin, dyed red and embossed with a complex pattern that was picked out with gold thread. Crossed on his back were a bastard sword and an eight-string orchanet lute; the top of each poked over one shoulder and the other. Prentice marked him as a Dhakaani battle bard, as he surveyed the empty coffee shop with the arrogant confidence typical of hobgoblins who, of all the goblinoids, recalled vividly the glories of their lost empire. The half-elf was harder to place. Her long blonde hair was tied back in a single thick plait that was woven through with alternating blue and red ribbons and hung almost to her waist. She had high cheekbones and bright eyes. Her tall, athletic form was clad in a breastplate and greaves of finely wrought mithral and a skirt, sandals and gloves of equally fine leatherwork. The sandals were an unfortunate choice, unsuited as they were to the wet season mud. At her belt she wore a short sword and on her back a small, round shield patterned with red and blue leather. She carried a full helm with a dyed horsehair crest tucked, military fashion, in the crook of her right arm. Prentice wondered if she were an officer in the military of a foreign country, perhaps Thrane or Karnaath. Like the hobgoblin, she had a disdainful air, though her face was flushed with the heat and sweat stains showed under the arms of her silk under-tunic. The third man was all too familiar to Prentice, as he was to most citizens of Newthrone. He was Baron Okthir d’Karnathe, Castellan of the Royal Palace and Commander of the City Guard. The Baron wore the long, grey tabard of his office, embroidered with the emerald green serpent and black ship of the New Galifar royal coat of arms. His hair was oiled and neatly woven in the traditional twin plaits of the nobility. His chisel cut beard was waxed and fashionably curved. In spite of the heat outside, he was cool and self-possessed; rumor had it that his suit of splinted mail had been arcanely wrought to keep its wearer comfortable and dry regardless of the weather. The Baron’s cold eyes searched out Prentice’s table and his lips turned up in a cruel smile that was nearly a sneer. Pulling his gloves from his hands, Okthir led the other two down into the coffee shop and towards Prentice. “What’ll you have?” Mennox called as she came back in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. “We have business with the Master Inquisitive,” said the Baron with a dismissive wave of his hand. His voice lilted softly in the fashion of the Royal Court. “You need not wait upon us.” Mrs Mennox humphed quietly to herself at the suggestion that she would wait upon anyone, courtier or no, but said nothing further. She withdrew to behind the counter and watched while the trio clustered around Prentice’s table. For his part, Prentice continued to sit, sipping at his coffee and declining to rise at the Baron’s approach. “What news, Prentice Ash?” Okthir asked. He affected a disinterested air, but his eyes revealed an unmistakable contempt. “I myself have heard word that a price is now being offered for your apprehension and delivery to a gentleman of the House of Finding.” “Not often that you refer to House Tharashk as ‘gentlemen’,” Prentice observed, trying to sound casual. His left hand edged towards his sword however, his fingers gently curving around the scabbard. “It’s quite an amount, apparently,” the Baron continued, ignoring Prentice’s verbal riposte. He leant in towards the seated man, his expression hardening to a contemptuous glare. “Enough even to tempt a relatively wealthy man, such as myself.” Prentice met the Watch Captain’s hateful gaze calmly. He looked momentarily to Baron Okthir’s two companions, wondering if the two foreigners were hirelings brought in to take him hostage. It didn’t seem likely, as they stood by, unready for a fight. They even seemed a little perplexed by the Baron’s behavior. Prentice’s eyes returned to the Baron’s face and the two men stared, each silently pushing the other to flinch. The moment stretched in near silence. The sound of the arcane silver wings sweeping back and forth seemed like the pulsing of a slow heartbeat, as if time had slowed down to drag out the unnerving confrontation. From her position behind the counter, Mrs Mennox’s nerves began to get the better of her. “Everything all right, luvs?” she asked gently, hoping to defuse the imminent conflict. Prentice raised his hand to her, but didn’t look away from Okthir’s eyes. “That’s alright, Mrs Mennox,” Prentice said with an iron voice. “Baron Okthir was just telling me about a bad financial decision he was thinking of making; an investment with no hope of a future return.” The standoff continued for one drawn out moment longer, then Okthir smiled and stood straight once more. “Perhaps some other time,” he said with a sniff of the cool, coffee house air. “Was this the business you came to discuss?” Prentice asked without relinquishing his grip on his sword. The hobgoblin grunted quietly, in what might have been a vague approximation of a polite cough. Okthir’s features twisted momentarily in an angry sneer that the two standing behind him couldn’t see, then his polite courtier’s face returned. “I am here with a royal commission, Prentice Ash,” he said as he reached into his belt and drew forth a document case emblazoned with the insignia of New Galifar. When the Baron opened the case, the papers inside looked as if their ink had not yet dried. Prentice cocked his head quizzically at the documents, clearly puzzled. “A royal commission? To what task?” he asked. “Well, when the Lord Chamberlain told me that he needed a man familiar with the ways of the primitive lizard-folk and accustomed to dealing with the refugee scum from Cyre, naturally your name leapt to mind.” Prentice rolled his eyes, pointedly refusing to rise to the Baron’s paltry insult. “What is expected of me?” he asked wearily. Royal commissions typically paid poorly and often came with the threat of imprisonment if they were refused. It was in part because of a previous commission from the Court that Prentice was in his current predicament with House Tharashk. “This young woman is the Lady Xarianthe Collisbar, of Aundair,” said Okthir, introducing the woman in a courtly fashion. She clicked her heels and bowed her head in formal acknowledgement of the introduction. “She and her companions are recently arrived in search of a childhood friend of Lady Xarianthe’s. A scholar named...” The Baron paused and waited for Xarianthe to provide the scholar’s name. It took the half-elven noblewoman a moment to realize why the Baron had lapsed into silence. “Professor Trothkaer Blaksung, of the Korranberg Library,” she eventually stammered. The moment’s lapse seemed to embarrass her deeply, making Prentice think that she was probably accustomed to the ruthless courtly politics of Aundair. The rougher manners of New Galifar politics might well be a shock to her. “Yes,” continued Okthir, unaware or unconcerned by the lady’s discomfort. “A gnome, from Zilargo. She was working on an archaeological site near that excremental cluster of hovels called Wyrmwatch, uncovering an ancient temple, apparently. The lady Xarianthe has lost all contact with her friend apparently and she has come to see that no harm has come to her. The Court would appreciate your assistance as a guide to the lady’s party, for the journey to Wyrmwatch and then on to the Professor’s digs.”
NOOC PHD 05-11-05, 07:28 PM	One vanity bump in the hope that someone might comment, or this thread sinks without trace. Comments are welcome. :)
RangerWickett 05-12-05, 02:58 PM	Nicely done. I can see a few ways your sample differed from mine, and so I can understand why you'd make the short list. I went for slightly more contemporary dialogue, and I did not have the same level of references to small aspects of Eberron; your POV character starts out in a city, so it's easier for you to immerse him in what life in Eberron is like -- magewright workmanship, the Korranberg Chronicle and other papers, and so on. In my defense, though, I did have one of my main characters smoking a cigarette; I had hoped that would score Noir points with the publishers. Prentice honestly reminds me of Samuel L. Jackson's Shaft. A good guy who can kick ass, but doesn't like hurting people if he can avoid it, which he can often do because he's sly and is good at spotting the bad guys. He's an interesting character (but if I hadn't read the synopsis first, I would have thought by his gray hair that he was an old man. Does anyone else want to post their pieces? Would you mind, NOOC?
fhilbrandt 05-12-05, 03:46 PM	For what it's worth: Synopsis The hamlet of Silverdale, once a part of the nation of Thrane, and now part of Aundair, firmly dedicated to following the faith of the Silver Flame, is being harassed by raiders that the villagers believe to be from a Druid in the nearby forest. They petition for help from The Kingdom of Aundair. The Kingdom, reluctant to help a small community with a xenophobic reputation in recently conquered territory, sends Bek, a changeling Rogue/Bard, a former spy for the Crown, now out of work and a bit of an embarrassment, and Relgis, a half-orc Paladin, to act as Silverdale’s protectors. The hamlet’s residents are less than pleased with their new constables, in fact, the only resident that will even talk to them is another outsider, a drunkard shifter named Jenna, a Ranger that had sided with Aundair when the Eldeen Reaches tried to secede, who has taken up residence in the hamlet’s otherwise unused gaol. Following the only lead they have, the trio tries to locate Jaris, a dragonmarked former Artificer turned Druid, in the nearby forest. While on the trail and after Jenna sobers up, she finds signs of a sizable group headed in the same direction. Following Bek’s hunch, the trio tries to intercept this group. The party finds a small community of maybe a half a dozen small houses clustered around a longhouse that has been seized by a well-armed group of mostly human warriors led by a warforged Fighter called Rock. Bek, using his disguise abilities, lures these brigands off one by one to be captured by Relgis and Jenna. After most of the bandits are dealt with, Bek, pretending to be great wizard, confronts Rock with some flashy parlor tricks while Relgis and Jenna drop a large wooden beam on his head. Having saved the community, Jaris, the community’s leader, and target of the brigands, comes out of hiding, and thanks the party. After denying any involvement with the attacks on Silverdale, which is backed up by Jenna’s claim that Rock and several of his band were seen in previous raids, Jaris reluctantly agrees to repair Rock in order to question him. Bek, having beaten Rock and his subsequent treatment of the warforged, wins the loyalty and respect of the construct, and is told that Dodge, an Artificer, a scion of House Orien, wishes to take control of the hamlet because it sits in a valley that leads to a rich field of Eberron dragonshards. The party, now five in number, heads back to protect a community that dislikes them. In a town meeting to rally the citizens of Silverdale, an impassioned speech by Relgis brings some of the people around but the town’s elders are not swayed. It becomes known that the elders have been tithing supplies to a nest of wyverns nearby, in the belief that the Flame wants them to. On learning that the wyverns protect a cache of treasure, including artifacts from Xen’drik, the heroes decide to acquire said artifacts for Silverdale’s defense. After nearly losing Relgis in the fight with the wyverns, the party returns to the town with some treasure, including a large, silver bell with a dragonshard imbedded in it, to learn that Dodge is planning to attack the town with a Warforged Titan. While the heroes mount a defense, with the help of a few of the townsfolk, Jaris begins to try to figure out how to use the artifacts. As Dodge and his Titan reach the town, Jaris explains that the bell may be a weapon against warforged, and using it may kill Rock, Bek decides there must be another way. As the battle ensues, Rock gets the bell and rings it, destroying the Titan and severely damaging himself as well. Relgis and Rock agree to remain as the town’s guardians, while Jaris goes back to his little village and Bek and Jenna decide to take the remaining treasure and leave Silverdale behind.
RangerWickett 05-13-05, 03:42 AM	Hot, dry wind blew dust off the Talenta Plains, and in through the cracked door of the House of Healing. A muffled rattle and a weary creak filled the otherwise silent building as a gust pressed at the door, swinging it inward and out again. Papers cracked and fluttered on the desks of the halfling bookmenders, but they worked on, healing in their own lonely way. A sudden alarm sounded, and throughout the building a dozen short heads looked up in shock. The magical ring alerted them to an intruder in the House, and they grabbed weapons and rushed to the entrance, fearing brigands, monsters, or worse. Instead they saw a swaggering human, dressed in a long rumpled coat. He was dark-skinned, his black hair fading to white in patches. Sweat beaded his forehead, and with a smug grin he glanced out the main door to the sandstorm. He shook out his coat with over-exaggerated motions, as if to get dust off of it, but it was apparent that he had not come in from the desert. His boots were wet. “Hell of a place you got here,” he said. He wiped the sweat from his forehead as he spoke, revealing a blue design etched on his wrist. The dragonmark glowed faintly, having been used recently. The halfling librarians raised their daggers and wands nervously toward the intruder. From the office on the opposite side of the entry foyer, the head of the hospital strode toward the human, displeasure on his face. Though only three feet tall, anyone there would have been certain the halfling was staring down at the intruder. “Parison,” the human laughed. “Hawkins d’Orien,” said Parison. He shook his head. “You’re not welcome here. I don’t want bounty hunters coming through here chasing after you.” Hawkins took off his coat and began to fold it, looking down at the crowd of halflings. Bemused, he said, “I thought you all were supposed to be . . . hospitable to strangers.” “That’s House Ghallanda, idiot. Bums who live in the streets can tell the difference. I suppose House Orien just isn’t that well informed.” “Oh yes.” Hawkins half-rolled his eyes. “We don’t have time to learn things about people. We’re too busy taking their money.” Parison chuckled. “Well I see that part of your upbringing has stuck.” “You kidding? I hate my damn family.” Hawkins snorted, then looked around again. “Can you call off the hounds or something?” Parison waved for the others to get back to work, and the group slowly dispersed. He turned back toward his office and waved for Hawkins to follow. “You look like hell, Hawk. Where’ve you been?” Hawkins rubbed his wrist, still warm to the touch after the teleport, then tossed a jangling necklace onto Parison’s desk before the halfling could get seated. It was silver chain strung through ten short talons of gold, each sparkling with a different color gem powder. “No,” Parison said emphatically. “Not a chance.” “Hey,” Hawkins laughed, “you said I looked like hell. Heal me, then. Help me get better by giving me some money for that. Got it in Q’barra. Interrupted some ritual or another in a swamp. It’s probably not cursed.” He pulled out a thin, rolled cigarette, and lit it with a cantrip. “Dammit, Hawk. That’s bad for the books.” Hawkins took a drag on his cigarette and slid his gaze slowly across the tiny office. Its shelves were crowded with damaged, aged books and scrolls, entrusted to House Jorasco, bearers of the dragonmark of healing. This tiny library, sitting in the middle of a desert near the Talenta Plains, was dry enough to slow the books’ decay, and remote enough that few travelers came without legitimate business. Hawkins exhaled smoke. “This ‘book’ thing is paying pretty well, ain’t it?” “You’re out of luck.” Parison tossed the necklace back to Hawkins. “I can’t find a buyer for this. Too many people are looking for you, what since you decided to turn yourself in for your own bounty. That went over well.” “I didn’t ‘try’,” Hawkins said. “I did. I’m a very hard man to catch. I expected to be well-rewarded for my troubles.” “Then that’d better last you. You’re upsetting a lot of people, and I’m not going to get in their way when they show up to catch you.” Hawkins took another draw on his cigarette, glaring quietly at the halfling as his last words hung in the air. “No one can catch me. I steal from rich people, and they can hire bounty hunters to make themselves feel better about it. I make a point to only upset people who can afford to ignore me.” “Well that theory doesn’t pan out. You’re irritating me.” Hawkins smiled, and pressed the stolen gold and silver necklace back onto the desk. “I’m just trying to make you a rich man, Parison. Anyway, if I do get caught and scuffed up a little, I promise to come to you exclusively for healing.” He chuckled. Parison began looking over the item, but he kept talking. “You’d be a waste of my time. You know, during the war I healed actual heroes. People who would have sacrificed their lives for others. The best thing you have going for you is that you’re the only person who ever comes out here.” “Yeah, great job on that,” Hawkins said. “It was really nice of you all to keep everyone alive and fighting so that the war could go on longer. Hell, I don’t know what we could’ve done without you.” “Was that what you were thinking when your wife died? ‘It’s a good thing no one’s here to stop the bleeding’?” The windblown door of the House of Healing clattered in the silence that followed. It wasn’t until after Hawkins finished his cigarette that he replied. He dropped the remaining burnt paper on the floor and stamped it out, then stood and leaned down over Parison’s desk. “I’m heading to Breland,” Hawkins said. “I need accurate maps of a couple of the towns along the lightning rail.” Parison looked down uncomfortably, then glanced away. “My wife,” Hawkins started to say, but then he stopped himself. He stood up straight, backing away from the desk. “You must have just loved the war. It gave you something to do, since all you’re really good for is fixing other people’s mistakes. “Hell, everyone was happier during the war. People cared about what they were doing, because they were fighting for their futures. And you see how that’s turned out. We’re living in that future now, and everyone just has to keep telling themselves that things are better. Everybody’s too afraid to doubt it. “We got to be heroes during the war. Even I was known to do the occasional good deed. But now all I have are. . . . What? Medals and celebrations from people I don’t know, because everyone I cared for is dead? And you, you’ve got a house in the middle of the desert, and I’m your best friend, so you know your life is worthless. “If people could be like me, they would be. I suffered through enough **** in the war. I’m entitled to take what I want. And no one is going to catch me.” Hawkins paced for a moment, then sighed and kicked the foot of Parison’s desk. “Great job. Now this is just awkward.” “Eight or nine hundred,” Parison said softly. “Give me a month?” Hawkins glanced at the necklace. He nodded slowly. A moment later he was relaxed and grinning. “Sounds good. Now will you show me some maps, or do I have to get emotional again?” He and Parison laughed ruefully, and the halfling quickly found something sufficient for Hawkins’ needs. The rebel from House Orien tucked the sheaves of paper under one arm and closed his eyes to concentrate on his destination, but Parison spoke before he could teleport away. “You are actually a friend. I know a lot of your friends end up dead, and I’m sorry I never had a chance to say goodbye to Shela and Kev. There are things worse than wounds that need healing. I hope you’ll come back soon, friend.” Hawkins smirked. “And that just shows stupid and sentimental halflings are. Oh, and why not look into lowering the ceiling a bit more before the next time I come? Big hero healer’s got nothing better to do than pick splinters out of my scalp.” Then, with a few short words of magic, he was gone. Again the House of Healing was silent, as it always was. Amid the rot and must of dying books, only the heat pressing in from the summer sandstorms made the place feel alive. * * * Labeth Porter’s canoe came to a sudden stop, pressing sharply upon a carved stone that jutted out of the Brelish swamp. Labeth hadn’t seen the obstacle in the haze of humidity and slime coating the marsh, but now she could make out many similar stones just below the surface, stretching away toward the village that was her destination. A week ago this land would have just been muggy, but summer rains had swept over Breland. The land was abuzz with mosquitoes and droning frogs. She had had to boat her way here, with no road to guide her. Just another thing getting in her way, minor enough compared to what she had faced before. A simple flood wasn’t going to deter her. She tied a rope to the guide pole and rammed it down through the water, into the muck below as a makeshift anchor. Confidently she stood, slender and tall, rising above the fog over the swamp. She wore the same chain armor that had protected her in the Last War. Her Aundair military overcoat was covered with patches where she had torn off her medals, long-since sold. Her brown hair lay limp from the heat, slumping down to her proud shoulders, loosely framing her face’s otherwise crisp angles. The white crystal pendant her dead husband had worn lay upon her chest, reflecting a glare from the sun up across Labeth’s chin. She reached up and held it lightly, and for a moment her weary blue eyes were free from the strain of obligation. Then, with a frown, she lifted her weapon and shield from the bottom of the canoe, and began to walk toward the village, using the short stones as steps across the water. The high twang of guitar music soon emerged from the sounds of the swamp, and Labeth walked to its tired beat. Stone to stone she stepped, until an old wooden house emerged from the hot morning haze. A man sat on the porch, bent over a guitar. His feet dangled in the green waters as he played out an old folk song. “Old man,” she called to him, “I was told this town had a seer. I’m looking for him.” The man placed a palm on the guitar strings, silencing them. “I am he.” He looked up, then leaned back and waved her forward. “Come in outta there, if you would. I don’t like seeing visitors desecrate our dead.” Labeth paused and peered down into the water, noticing now faint writing on each of the stones. Each had a name. She looked back to her tiny canoe, but the boat was hidden by reeds and dense, hot mist. This made her smile. “You knew I had a boat. Is the rest of your prophesying as good?” The man laughed, a deep sound that shook his body. Labeth could not help but feel the laugh belonged to a larger man, but the seer looked recently lean, the hunger not yet having eaten away at his spirit. She walked over to him, still walking across headstones until she could step onto the stairs and the porch. From the porch, she surveyed the rest of the tiny swamp village. Tall grass and weeds surrounded many of the buildings, their owners having long since left. Labeth could tell the occupied houses by the skinned and cut birds and rabbits adorning their walls, hanging to cook in the sun. The scent of spiced meats filled the air, stronger than the musk of the swamp. A pair of men sat on one house’s porch, content to watch the waters drift by their town. “Let’s go inside,” she said. The seer nodded, stood, and showed her inside his home. He left his guitar out on the porch. The inner room was decorated with the cast-offs of a life of war. Trophies, a dented shield, a notched mace – all hung on the wall like paintings of dead relatives. Floor, walls, and many shelves were covered with unlit candles, and a wasp hovered around its nest in a corner of the ceiling. The seer circled around the room, lighting candle to candle, closing blinds on windows as he passed them. Low firelight bathed the room, and the man moved to the center of the ring of candles. He tossed a pinch of incense into the air, and the flames suddenly rolled from orange to brilliantly gleaming silver. “Three hundred gold,” the man said. He gestured to a large empty urn sitting on a windowsill. When Labeth hesitated, the man added, “I can’t see the question you’re going to ask, woman, but I knew you would come. The price is set. Don’t worry, child. I know you can afford it.” She smiled angrily, and rummaged through her pack for a few notes of mark. She held them up for him to see the amount, and then placed them in the urn. The man nodded and gestured for her to proceed. “I need money,” she said. “Several thousand in gold. You’re going to tell me where I can get it quickly. Find me a nice caravan carrying gems, or a rich merchant who’s going to get lost in the woods. Anything works.” The seer frowned, then shrugged and bowed his head. He muttered words of a spell under his breath, and the incense he had sprinkled on the floor vanished in a burst of silver flame. Labeth laughed to herself at the display, then waited. The man was silent for a long stretch, and Labeth shifted her weight impatiently. Finally, just as she opened her mouth to speak, the candle flames turned from silver back to orange. She closed her mouth and waited for her answer. “Southwest of here,” the man said, “near Baran’s Keep, there’s a village called Woodridge. Be there in eight days, at sunset. A man who has stolen a great treasure will be there. He has a great bounty which you can collect.” “Anything else you can tell me?” “Sorry, girl, but no. Something tells me you’re not going to pay another three hundred, so I hope that was useful enough. When you leave, try not to walk through the graveyard. They don’t like it when folk do that.” “I doubt they’re coming back any time soon,” Labeth said. The man shook his head disapprovingly and turned to snuff out the candles. While he was looking away, Labeth pulled out a short wand from her sleeve. The man began to speak to chide her, but his words were cut off. The room fell into complete silence, lacking even the humming drone of the swamp. The seer wheeled to look at her, his face full of shock and fear. Labeth rushed toward him and slammed her shield in his face, knocking him to the floor. The man tried to trip her, tried to scream, but the magical silence was absolute. He managed to pull Labeth’s dagger from her boot sheath, but she backed away from his slash. He rolled away and crawled to cover behind a table, but she kicked the table away and slammed down her flail, striking the seer’s arm and knocking the dagger from his grasp. The beaten man glared up to her from the floor, clutching his broken arm. Though he was no doubt a skilled spellcaster, in the silence he could not call for his magic. Nor could he call for help. It took several strikes before the man stopped moving. She tore through the small house for the next few minutes, finding anything of value she could carry, including the silver urn and the money she had paid him. Before she left, she kicked the man to make sure he was still breathing, and then she cancelled the silence spell. Chuckling, Labeth thought to herself that a seer should have been less surprised. She stopped outside the door and picked up the guitar, about to take it, but then reconsidered. Money was free for the taking, but she could not bring herself to take the man’s spirit. She gently laid the guitar back onto the porch, then headed back to her boat, walking from headstone to headstone. * * * The sky roiled with strange purple energies as the warforged known as Alloy stared down the pacing hellbeast. Alloy’s weary carver dinosaur mount nearly balked, but the warforged soothed the creature, then sat high in his saddle, raising his glaive, preparing to charge. No rain fell here in the Mournland, but lightning crackled overhead, and the mist-filled air seemed to tear beneath the roar of thunder. The misshapen, twelve-foot tall monster circled Alloy and his mount. Dozens of arrows pierced its hide, the result of hours of hunting and harrying. Its leonine body crackled with flames, and four jagged horns curled from its head. Its burnt flesh was a rotten black, sloughing off in thin sheets as the creature moved. It was one of the less revolting creatures of the Mournland. Compared to its bleak decaying presence, and to the lifeless expanse of the gray plains around them, Alloy and his mount stood out in brilliant, colorful defiance. The dinosaur’s scales were striped with the red, yellow, and blue of Talenta halfling warpaint, from its saw-toothed mouth to the six-inch long raking talons on its feet. Seated firmly atop his steed, Alloy too was bedecked in Talenta designs. A mantle of dinosaur hide was stretched across a bow of wood that lay upon his shoulders. Two long, sharpened bones came up from the sides of his saddle like spikes, they too painted with dagger-shaped designs. Inlaid wood etched across the warforged’s body of metal armor in criss-crossing lines, and the gleaming turquoise inlaid around his mouth resembled the snarling, toothy grin of a hunting dinosaur. Lightning flashed again, and sixty feet away the hellbeast reared up to its two hind legs, then roared and slammed to the ground in a charge. A synthetic sigh passed from Alloy’s metal lips, and he spurred his mount to meet the charge. The hellbeast lowered its head, preparing for a gore, but at the last moment Alloy shifted his weight to the left, and his carver mount swung sideways. Alloy slashed down with the glaive, tearing through the beast’s right flank as it trampled past them. Alloy shouted a short warcry, then wheeled his mount about to face the beast. Charred black hooves dug into the cracked ground, and the beast twisted in its charge and angled for Alloy. Its tusked mouth distended open, and a gout of flame burst out. The carver leapt upward above most of the flame, and in midair Alloy shifted his glaive to point downward. Still charging, the horrid beast ran straight into their path, and Alloy’s glaive drove into the creature’s shoulder, thrusting deep under the weight of mount and rider. The carver itself grasped with its foreclaws onto the beast’s face, and the sickle claw on its hind foot began to tear at the bony extrusions around the monster’s eyes. The beast rolled onto its side suddenly, spilling the carver off its face, and Alloy from his saddle. He fell to the ground painfully, feeling an inner plating collapse from the impact. Worse, though, he heard the loud snap of his glaive’s shaft shattering under the beast’s crushing, rolling weight. Alloy pressed himself to his knees and looked up. The hellbeast towered over him, a short shaft of wood sticking up from its shoulder. The massive creature lashed out with a hoof and kicked Alloy to the ground, then planted the full weight of its foreleg atop him, grinding him into the dust of the Mournland plain. Alloy pulled a shortsword from his hip sheath and thrust it upward, fast enough to keep the monster’s goring horns at bay. The hellbeast opened its mouth and snarled, and Alloy saw a red glow rising up its throat. With a screech, the carver leapt upon the hellbeast’s already slashed flank. Ignoring the flames that seared out from the wound, the dinosaur bit and tore at the monster, rending huge streaks of flesh from its back. The decaying demon flesh collapsed into black dust as it fell away, and the creature reared up, trying to drive the dinosaur from its back. Its weight pulled away from Alloy’s chest, and the warforged rolled clear. Free from the monster’s pin, Alloy charged for its foreleg and jumped, digging his metal fingers into cracks of flesh, using for handholds the arrow shafts that still stuck out of its body. He reached the remains of his glaive and tore it free, then began jabbing it down into the monster’s unarmored neck and shoulders, while just a few feet away his mount carved away at the beast’s flank. Suddenly, the monster lashed its head sideways, and one of the jutting horns struck Alloy. The horn crunched metal and impaled the exposed wood of his shoulder joint. He grimaced, but grabbed onto the horn as the beast tried to pull away. Clinging with his mangled arm, he used his free hand to drive the tip of his glaive at the hellbeast’s eye. Several strikes missed, deflected by bone ridges, but he kept attacking. A gout of fire breath seared Alloy’s dangling legs, and the creature twisted and tried to swing him free, but he would not let go. Finally, desperately, the beast tried to roll again. Alloy braced the remainder of his glaive, and as the monster’s weight fell upon him, it drove the blade through the creature’s eye and into its brain. The huge creature went limp, and Alloy was pinned. Fire began to seep from the dead monster’s wounds, and though he struggled, the warforged could not escape. The last sound he heard before he succumbed to the pain was the barking of the carver as it tried to free him. First came simple unconsciousness, and he felt nothing. But then awareness washed over him. Something crept into the warforged’s mind for the first time ever, and in its presence, Alloy dreamed. He stood at the edge of a great rift in the earth, black, but alive with the sound of waterfall and wildlife. The ground around him was covered in grass and trees, swaying gently in the sunlight, and in the distance across the rift, someone called to him. A boy, too distant for his voice to be heard. Overhead, something larger but less tangible than a moon swept across the face of the sun, and the ground shook in shadow. Gray steam shot up from the stones surrounding the rift, and screams called out from below. Without caring how or why, Alloy was no longer in his body, and his will sped through the air above the rift, trying to reach the boy, to save him. The boy was just close enough for Alloy to see his face when the deadly mist began to roll across him. The boy’s expression showed no fear, and it seemed as if he was waiting for someone. A triangle-shaped scar marked his face, a design of interweaving cuts stretching from the right side of his chin up across the entire left side of his face. As the mist began surrounding him, hiding him, the scar began to glow a faint blue, the fiery blue of a dragonmark. The boy’s eyes still stared out at Alloy from within the glowing scar, and then the gray mist swept him away. For a moment only the glow was still visible, but then even that was gone. Removed from his body, Alloy floated above the rift, now dark and seemingly bottomless. Mist rolled into it from all sides, and in the depths of the mist, far below in the blackness, he could feel something trying to break free. Alloy awoke. His mount had managed to drag him free from the hellbeast’s corpse, which was now just a flickering lump of ash, slowly being blown away by the wind. He was burnt badly, and his mount was injured perhaps worse. He had slain the beast like he had promised, and he knew he could return to his tribe now. But he shook his head. Alloy had never had a dream before, if that was what it was, and he could not dismiss it so easily. Everywhere he looked, he could faintly see the outline of the dragonmark, as if it had been burned across his eyes. “The boy was calling for help. I need to find him.” He looked to his wounded companion, and patted the dinosaur’s snout lightly. Then he touched the carved figurine that hung on the chain around his wrist, and with a thought, dismissed the conjured creature, to let it heal. For a while, he sat quietly on the empty Mournland plain, alone. Then he stood, recovered the remains of his weapons, and turned west, toward the city where all secrets lie, toward Sharn. Hiking away slowly, Alloy sighed. “Stupid world,” he muttered. “You’re always taking advantage of my good nature.”
fhilbrandt 05-16-05, 02:56 PM	It was times such as this that Bek wished Relgis was well enough to run interference for him. People tended to listen to the paladin, half-orc or not, about as much as they ignored the changeling. Village Elder Hamdon, the local priest, had just barged into Bek’s office in the gaol. "This is intolerable," the gray-bearded older man bellowed. "You cannot put that, that, thing in charge of guarding our temple! Surely the Flame will strike us all down if we allow it. She bears the taint that the followers of the true faith fought to eliminate from Eberron. She will not be allowed into our house of worship." Bek shook his head. How can some humans be so damned narrow-minded, he thought. "First of all, Elder Hamdon," Bek began, "Jenna is a shifter, not one of the were-folk; your own church has had no real problems with her race in ages. Secondly, she is one of the best swordsmen I've ever seen. Thirdly, she lives here so she knows all the villagers by name and can command a good defense. You said yourself in the town meeting the other day that the temple was the only defensible building around that could hold most of your townsfolk. "And lastly," he said, rising to make his point, "you asked for the Crown's help, and, like it or not, I'm it. You will defer to me in this matter. If you wish to complain about that, you can send a letter to the Ministry, if we survive the night, that is." Escorting the Elder to the door, he concluded, "You and your fellow churchmen need to set up a battlefield infirmary inside your temple; we're going to need it very shortly. Good day, sir." Outside was the ordered chaos of a town making ready for an attack. The main thing, Bek knew, was to keep the common folk busy enough not to begin panicking. The sad fact was that the tiny hamlet of Silverdale had been through this sort of thing before; this area of what is now southern Aundair was once part of the theocracy of Thrane, the land having been fought over many times in the past century. Bek felt very much out of his element, in the ten years he had served the Crown, he had only once fought in a real battle, and then only by accident. The camp of the captain he was reporting to had been surprised by a pack of goblin mercenaries, in the employ of one of the other factions. They never did find out who had sent them. His rapier had been well bloodied on that day, as was his armor; unfortunately, the blood filling his boot had been his own. A few welcomed potions healed his physical wounds, not even strong drink could remove the memories. The only good thing, if one could call it that, that had come from that attack was that he and his friend Relgis were still in the camp on the Brelish frontier and not in Cyre on the Day of Mourning. Now, Relgis was near death, poisoned by wyverns, and Bek was being looked up to by this hamlet's hundred souls and the small group of companions he had acquired for leadership. By the Sovereigns, he was a spy, not a military commander, he thought. These Flamers don't even want me breathing their air. Down the wide, cobblestone street, one of Bek's companions was in an argument with one of the locals over the use said local's livestock fence. Rock was a warforged, built to take orders and fight without question. He would be doing that still had Bek not shown him the respect due another sentient being and pointed out that he had the right to make his own choices. He sometimes wished for the simplicity of the regiment again. He had begun dismantling the fence to add to the barricade at the edge of the town on the orders of Bek, the appointed Crown's Constable, when the resident of the dwelling began yelling and threatening Rock with bodily harm. While the warforged doubted that the human's wooden pitchfork was capable of damaging his adamantine-laced form, he also was cognizant of the fact that his current mission was to protect these same people. So he tried to reason with the older man. Having little skill with words and, he knew, not being the most quick-witted of creatures, Rock was not able to sway the villager that the town needed the fence more that his goats did. Soon, a number of other villagers had joined the debate, with about the same number supporting each side of the argument. While the small group debated, Rock slipped away, as stealthily as his nearly three hundred pound frame would allow, and quietly went back to work of the fence. When the villagers finally noticed, a new, smaller enclosure had been constructed, and Rock was busy adding half the wood to the barricade. Demmit, the goatherd, was more that a little taken aback by this. His only comment to the warforged was "Nice fence," as he started work beside him. Jaris had identified most of the various items they had brought back from the wyverns' cave, but the use of the artifact still eluded him. It was shaped something like a bell, though long and thin, cast in bronze, chased with rune-etched red gold bands inset with numerous, small Eberron dragonshards. Mounted on its side in a frame similar to those Jaris had seen on mobile ballistae during the war, the open end of the bell pointing in the direction of fire had a ballista actually been attached to the frame. A locked compartment on the frame contained a series of padded recesses, two of which contained what could only be tuning forks, each with a tiny dragonshard embedded within it. Jaris had his little cadre of spellcasters, the hamlet's lone wizard and nearly a dozen magewrights, set the device up a small distance from the buildings, pointed toward a low mound some fifty yards away. Several scarecrows and nearly ripe melons on short posts were placed around the field to test the effects of the artifact, if there were any. After shooing Calix, the large feral dog that had adopted the former artificer after he had taken up his calling as a druid, away, Jaris selected one of the tuning forks and stuck it against the palm of his hand. As the tone sounded, a previously unseen rune began to glow on the tuning fork and a second, similar rune began glowing on the bell toward its closed end. Touching the base of the tuning fork to the bell, Jaris was momentarily blinded and nearly deafened as the runes carved around the bell flared to life and the volume of the tuning fork's tone was amplified by the bell. The sound and light seemed to recede, concentrating somewhere deep within the bell's throat. Suddenly, a column of fire shot from the mouth of the bell, searing a perfectly straight line, some five feet wide, across the field. The targets within this path were vaporized, instantly turned to ash. Even the distant mound of earth now had a smoking hole etched deep into its side. The glow within the runes on the sides of the bell slowly faded, though the metal remained too hot to touch for several minutes. The tuning fork, Jaris noticed, now had a dull gray sheen and sounded flat to his ear. So, he thought, it has limited uses. The forks probably recharged over the course of the day, and they had one other fork to use against their enemy. Between the three eternal wands that they had found, and the magic bow that Jenna had appropriated, they might just have a chance. A call came from the center of the hamlet, one the younger boys came around one of the buildings shouting for Jaris. "The warforged's collapsed," the winded lad said. "Come quick!" As Jaris came around the corner, he saw Rock laying in the street, an older man standing over him with concern and confusion. "What happened," Jaris snapped. "And be as detailed as possible." "We were working on the barricade," the goatherd said, "when we heard a loud sound, like the temple gong, only lower and louder. Suddenly, it … er, he started shaking like he was having a fit. (They don't have fits, do they?) Anyway, he has a fit, and falls over. "Is it, he, whatever, dead?" "I'm not sure," Jaris replied. An examination of the warforged's body showed some apparent damage, but it did not appear to be that extensive. Not having the time for a more in-depth examination, Jaris placed two fingers on Rock's forehead and muttered a quick spell. The inert form was surrounded by a pale glow, fittings on the metal joints seemed to tighten themselves, and a sense of connectedness returned to his visible organic components. Rock sat up slowly and looked around. "I appear to have been damaged," he said. After a moment, he continued, "I am not functioning at optimum, but can return to work." As he stood up, still somewhat unsteadily, Jaris asked, "What happened? What did it feel like? Do you remember anything?" "Sonic damage," the warforged replied. "You never forget what a spell feels like, provided it doesn't kill you, that is." As the warforged went back to his work, Jaris called over the town's only wizard, a young woman with long, dark hair and bright blue eyes, named Lyrrys, and one of the more experienced magewrights, one of the village's few non-human residents, a dwarf called Keldagan, and gave them some instructions on setting the town's magical defenses. "Remember," he said, "eternal wands only work twice a day. Save them until they're needed. There are potions of cat's grace for the archers. Get set up on those roofs, I need to go find Bek and see if there is anything else that needs to get done. "Good luck. I'll be back to help as soon as I can, and while prayer can only help us, don't let it get in the way of the work." Bek waited until the local healer, a halfling adept called Tennadi, finished his ministrations. "There's not much more I can do, I'm afraid," he said, as he packed away the contents of his healer's kit. "The wounds are all healed, and the poison didn't kill him. It's only a matter of time before the effects of the poison are flushed from his system. He should be up and about in a couple of days." With that remark, the halfling left the small room to return to the aid station being set up in the main hall of the temple. "Why do all healers talk like their charges aren't even in the room with them?" Relgis said, weakly. It required a visible effort for him to even smile. "That would require them to see them as individual living beings," Bek responded, reverting to his natural form; half-formed features, grayish skin, colorless eyes and hair. "During the war, that could drive healers mad. We've seen that all too often, old friend." Jenna, the shifter ranger they had found here in Silverdale, who was now in charge of the final line of defense of the hamlet's population, poked her head around the door. "You still do not smell dead," she said, no hint of humor in her statement. "I said you would live, and I was right." She strode into the room, again the alpha female, and appropriated the pile of cushions near the foot of the cot the paladin was confined to. "The poison will fade," she stated. "You are as strong, half-orc, as you are wise. You will be missed in this battle," she emphasized battle with a quick flash of her fangs. She looked up at the changeling and back to the paladin. "Should we not survive," she began, "I would like you to know that you have my thanks. Drink was not truly an escape from my fate, but just a fool's attempt at a slow death. My kind knows the hunt, we feel it deeply in our bones; we revel in battle. This is truly as I wish to be, and I owe you much for allowing me to see this." "You're welcome," Bek said, smiling. "If we get through this, you should consider joining Relgis and me on whatever adventure presents itself next. We could always use another sword." Relgis looked as if he was searching for the right words to respond to Bek's invitation when Jaris quickly entered the room. Responding to Bek's inquiry regarding the magical defenses with a dismissive wave of his hand, he said, "We have a bigger problem. "The artifact, the big bell, we found generates a powerful blast of fire similar to a dragon's breath, but it only has one more use today. I had planned to place it in the street in front of the temple where it could be used for best effect." "'Had planned?'" Relgis said, almost a whisper. "Yes," Jaris went on. "The bell has a secondary non-directional effect. It generates a sonic blast that only seems to effect warforged." "Oof," was Bek's initial response. The bell would be a perfect weapon against Dodge d'Orien's warforged titan, but it would probably destroy Rock, the group's warforged companion as well. There seemed to be only one option. "We can't use the artifact," Bek said. "I can't risk Rock's life like that." Looking down at his half-orc friend, he smiled and said, "I guess you're finally rubbing off on me." Looking around at the small group of companions that he had acquired since coming to this small town on the Aundair frontier, he said, "We'll set it up in front of the temple like you said, Jaris, but we'll use it as a bluff, nothing more."